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For the last couple of years the Salmon River and anyone with a concern for our watershed home and its protection and study, has been subjected to slanderous front page “special opinion” articles presented as alleged “news stories”, in the Scott Valley’s Pioneer Press. Sarcastically, but accurately referred to locally as the “Paranoid Press”. It’s been a long time since the paper has been in the river’s stores and subscriptions have long ago been cancelled. Ever since the acquisition of the paper by the Webster family and the installation of Daniel Webster as publisher/editor, the ethics involved in reporting news were openly abandoned and alleged “news” stories became riddled with the opinions of the reporter. One by one reporters frustrated with the lack of journalistic ethics quit writing. Others were fired when they wrote too many stories that reported straight facts. Reflecting Webster and his ilk's apparent lack of ethics, as editor he seems to believe that the facts of a story aren’t the point of a story. Webster and his “reporters” appear to believe that unless they tell their readers how to interpret the story the reader might not get it. All views seem to be filtered through a very radical, fundamentalist perversion of Christian doctrine. The environmental views seem rooted in the 1850’s era logic that the whole world is there to be raped, despoiled and then cast aside as useless land. Unless it’s a crony’s land, of course. The right to screw up the environment in the name of progress, private property, or profit is a right guaranteed in the Constitution (its location is never noted, probably one of those pesky amendments). Daniel Webster’s personal house seems to be in colossal disarray. He has been convicted of giving drugs to a minor, while a not guilty verdict was given on two of the felony counts and the jury remained hung on four felony charges involving the molestation of an underage boy. Some of residents believe that he resorted to what’s known in Siskiyou County as the “Felice Pace, KFA Defense”. Apparently one steps into the witness box, moves the witness chair back and proceeds to spin around in circles as fast as one can, yelling, “Felice Pace, Felice Pace” at the top of ones lungs, until one passes out and falls to the floor. At that point, apparently, a Siskiyou County jury will promptly pronounce innocence. The strain of it all on the poor accused, after all. Not much sympathy or justice for the young victims. He's been crying gay bashing ever since he came out of the closet as an environmentalist. I’m just plain tired of hearing my community slandered and defamed by someone filled with hate for his fellow man, who has rarely ever driven through the river, much less set foot out of the car. This apparent pomposity, this arrogance, this willingness to make facts bend to opinion, or just print opinion as fact, has alienated most of the river community. Life's cascading changes have left people like Webster paralyzed with fear. Afraid to move ahead because all he can see is his personalized fantasies of the past. Attention Mr. and Mrs. America, stop the presses! This just in! A map of the Scott Valley has been found, with Fort Jones (home to the Pioneer Press office) and the houses of the latest Methamphetamine lab busts clearly circled. Obviously clear proof that the Pioneer Press is laundering Russian Mafia rubles through right-wing “wise use” despoilers of AMERICA’S Land and their evildoer fellow travelers at undisclosed Savings and Loans, with ties to southeast Asian drug lords, and, most damning of all, the Republican Party! And that’s the facts folks. As I see’um. And anyone who disagrees with my view of the truth, which is the only truth, is a pitiful object, worthy of only ridicule, disgust and personal attack. I don’t really know how you stop a person like Webster, or his alleged newspaper, from disseminating lies disguised as truth; opinion masquerading as fact. How does one stop someone hell bent on publishing hate in the name of some god unfamiliar to most decent hard working people? How does one keep a local paper from driving ever deeper divisive barriers between the communities it supposedly “serves”? I think the answer lies in living the truth no matter how a blind man might perceive our actions and goals. We need to live with the mandate that many of local Salmon River and Klamath River community organizations have in their charters; to encourage the interaction and cooperation between all interested persons and organizations. Thus we provide a forum of mutual change and a greater understanding of people and issues. Pretty broad-stroke indictment, you say? Hey, I’m a Local! I’m tired of being pushed into someone else’s macabre, self-destructive fantasy. Makes me Hostile. (Shadow Creek is yet another of the infamous Creek Brothers. No relation to the drainage of the same name.) The
preceding aritcle is the TRUTH. There is no other
TRUTH, but this TRUTH. If you are unable to see the TRUTH, then read
this piece over and over and over again, until you see the TRUTH. If
you are to make something the TRUTH then you must simply repeat it often
enough to dispel all doubt.
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